, 1887-10-20
THE INDIAN ARROW POISON.
A Most Interesting and Curious Drug.
Effects Upon ApimaIs-No Antidote.

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A Most Interesting and Curious Drug.
Effects Upon AnimaIs-No Antidote.
Curare or curara, or arrow poison, is a
most Interesting and curious drug, be-
longing to the class n~eurotics. 1t is a
juice or extract from the bark of a
creeping vine indigenous to Guiana and
Central America, and is largely used by
the Indians as an arrow poison for kill
ing game and in. war.
The Indians prepare the poison with
great secrecy and mystery, mixing the
extract of the vine with other herbs, red
and black ants, and the powdered fangs
of a venomous serpent. 1t is then boiled
over a slow fire until the liquid is brown
and of a very bitter taste, when it is
poured into q small vessel and kept in a
cool, dry place. When ready for use the
extract is very soluble in water, and is
therefore very diffusible when introduced
into a wound, being quickly dissolved by
the blood and rapidly carried into the
circulation, producing stupor and pa
ralysis.
The Indians prepare a number of ar
rows at a time previous to a baltic or a
hunting expedition. They are prepared
by dipping the point of the arrow into
the glutinous, semi-solid poison and twist
ing it about until a sufficient quantity of
the extract has adhered to the tip, when
they are laid aside to dry.
Mr.. Lift, in The London Medical Ga
zette, states that he found the extract to
retain its poisonous properties for q
period of twenty-seven years, but must
be kept in a dry place. Bernard, a
traveller in British Guiana, writes that he
found some which had been loosely on
the tip of an arrow for fifteen years and
which still retained sufficient virulence
to kill an animal in a few minutes. The
poison begins its effect upon an animal,
wounded with an arrow prepared as de-
scribed, in from one to three minutes
with COMMISSIONS, the animal apparently
suffering no pain, death ensuing in four
or five minutes. The poison does not
hasten st~upefaction in the tissues of the
animal, as is the case with snake poison,
and its flesh is used as food by the Indians
without any bad effects.
A traveller in Central America de-
scribes an experiment in which three ar.
rows were introduced beneath the skin Of
an OK. For four minutes there was no
effect, then it set itself firmly on its four
legs as ii to resist falling and remained
quite still for fourteen minutes; it then
attempted to walk, but stumbled and fell.
the eyes became fixed, dim and apparent
ly insensible to light; there were convul-
sions in the limbs, labored breathing and
frothing at the mouth. After commissions
in the limbs had ceased there was still
some motion of the heart at intervals. In
twenty-five minutes from the introduc-
ton of the poisoned arrows the animal
was dead. The flesh was eaten, but it
had acquired no peculiar flavor or odor
from the poison and gave rise to no I'M
pleasant symptoms.
A curious fact about curara thus pre-
pared is that it is inert when swallowed
into the stomach and must be introduced
directly into the blood or circulation Chy-
podermically, as it were) in order to kill.
The reason for this is doubtless hat the
fluids of digestion, particularly the acid
gastric juice, change the chemical COM
position of the poison by reaction upon it,
rendering it inert before it can become
digested and reach the circulation of the
blood.
The poison appears to have no action
on the heart, as it continues its pulsations
for a time after resNiration has ceased.
From one grain and a half to two grains
suffices to kill rabbits, and a much smaller
quantity operates fatally by hypodermic
injection.
There is no known antidote to the
effects of curara. The only hope of saw
ing life is to ligate strongly the wounded
limb between the wound and the heart
and making free and rapid excisions of
the part, or, more radically, the amputa-
ton of the entire limb as far above the
wound and ligature as possible.
An alkaloid called curarina has been
isolated from curara; it operates in the
same way as the latter, but more power
fully; paralyzes the voluntary muscles
by its effect on the anterior roots of the
spinal nerves., destroying motor power.
1t answers to the same chemical tests as
s%trychnia, but differs from it somewhat
in action.-Philadelphia Times.